Page 235 - Feasibility Study of New Media Technology on Constructing Online Public Sphere

Chapter 7. The Yihuang incident

7.5.3 The dissemination features of user behaviour during the online
public participation on Weibo

This section discusses the primary features of internet users’ behaviour on Wei-
bo in terms of the online public participation. Here, I use a metaphor to explain the
dissemination features on Weibo. Assuming Weibo is the surface of still water, social

events, which rely on public opinion and public participation, are the stones thrown
into the water that causes ripples. The ‘stone’ is the first post that starts the information
flow, in other words, the ‘stone’ represents the source of public opinion. Comments,
discussions and reposting then make public opinion diffuse concentrically. Netizens’

activities resemble ripples on the water. Hereby, three communicative features emerge:
the ‘soaring’ feature, the ‘fissionable’ feature and the ‘domino’ feature.

7.5.3.1 The ‘soaring’ feature

The ‘soaring’ feature refers to the phenomenon when a social event raised ex-

tensive attention mainly due to the common resonance among the public. The reason
netizens’ activity may bring the ‘soaring’ feature is because the topic of a social event
is highly resonating for the general public. As discussed in the previous section, reso-

nance is the principal factor for Weibo to be an online space to gather public opinion.
High resonance stimulates people to follow the event and participate in the discussion
to form a public sphere. However, such subjective emotion cannot lead to unified public
opinion but generate diverse voices. Also, these events are usually controversial topics
that can reflect people’s value orientation, behaviour intention and judgement ability.

The diversity in these three aspects makes it difficult to achieve consensus. The ‘soaring’
feature is embodied when people debate on the same topic.
In contrast to the traditional media space, the ‘soaring’ feature is the one non-con-

trollable element in Weibo as a typical We Media. During my interviews with the
practitioners in the media industry, in their daily practice, although ‘guidance of public
opinion’ and ‘professional ethical codes’ are perceived as less important comparing
with following government’s regulations, they would try hard to take an objective and
neutral stand in social events. However, such principle is difficult to guarantee in We

219
219